As Steed SOA faculty generate business insights through research, publications of their findings attract the interest of the business and academic communities. Recently, faculty member Brant Christensen’s academic audit research proficiency drew attention from the real-world audit community. Christensen’s study into the effect of audit staff overload on audit quality was cited by PCAOB member Robert Brown in a presentation on audit committees, audit quality, and investor protection. In addition, Christensen was a member of an academic research group that recently provided assistance to the AICPA’s Assurance Research Advisory Group on how to adapt the audit planning process to improve the audit quality of group audits.
Steed SOA Faculty Generate Business Insights
From left: Brant Christensen, Bin Li, and Ashley Newton
A study by Brant Christensen and co-authors Chris Wolfe and Scott Vandervelde, “Intuition versus Analytical Thinking and Impairment Testing,” recently was published by Contemporary Accounting Research. This study examined the relative use of intuition versus analytical thinking in auditor risk assessment for asset impairment indicators.
Bin Li recently presented “Economic Consequences of IFRS Adoption: The Role of Changes in Disclosure Quality,” co-authored with Gianfranco Siciliano and Mohan Venkatachalam, at the Contemporary Accounting Research Conference. The study found that IFRS-adopting firms provide more disaggregated information upon IFRS adoption. Further, the increase in disaggregated information due to IFRS adoption enhances market liquidity and decreases information asymmetry, but does not affect audit fees differentially.
In a forthcoming study in The Accounting Review, “Customer-Base Concentration, Investment, and Profitability: The U.S. Government as a Major Customer,” Bin Li and co-author Daniel Cohen examine whether customer-base concentration has a differential impact on profitability for firms with government customers and firms with corporate customers. Overall, this research suggests that government customers are unique and important in the composition of customer base and they impact firm outcomes in a significantly different way than corporate customers.
Research by Bin Li and co-authors Zhi Da, Umit Gurun, and Mitch Warachka, “Investment in a Smaller World: The Implications of Air Travel for Investors and Firms,” is forthcoming in Management Science. This study on the impact of proximity of investors to firms in their investment portfolios finds that, overall, air travel improves the diversification of investor portfolios and lowers the cost of equity for firms.
Ashley Newton and co-authors Tor-Erik Bakke and Hamed Mahmudi recently published “Peer Performance Groups in CEO Compensation Contracts” in Financial Management. Because CEOs often receive compensation based on their company’s financial performance relative to that of a peer group, the purpose of this study was to investigate these pay arrangements and how peer companies are chosen. The researchers concluded that, although companies for the most part choose peer firms rationally (similar industry, size, etc.), evidence suggests that CEOs can influence this process by selecting peer companies that are easier to outperform.
Kaimee Tankersley and co-authors A. Ah Loy and A. Walton recently published “Creditor Beware: Bankruptcy is an Uncertain Remedy for Marijuana-Related Businesses” in Banking and Financial Services Policy Report. “Environmental Law: Instructional Strategies for Engaging Students in the Debate on Climate Change Regulation” recently was published by Tankersley and co-author Aubree Walton in Journal of Legal Studies Education.
A case study, “The GCC and iCAN Agreement: A Case Study on International CBD Trade,” by Kaimee Tankersley and co-authors J. Ochoa and Aubree Walton recently was presented at the Rocky Mountain Academy of Legal Studies in Business 2019 Annual Conference.
